Frost Bite...Ouchie...

So for the past few weeks I've been working on an off a non uni project for a Razor Kid Contest. (Yes I am that much of a Geek)...
I did it traditionally at first and I was working on it at uni when I wasn't doing anything else. (Like I should have been doing. XD)

My scanner, for once, decided it was going to work but then it killed the colours on the picture and made it look dull and falt. ¬ ¬ So I went against what I originally decided and Digitalised it in Photoshop CS2 using the pen tool. It is my friend. =3

So here is the "Tradional" piece:

(minus Crayola and Biro. XD...Which I shall upload when my brother goes to Cadets as I've stolen this from him for a few minutes.)

And here is then Digitalised:

Please excuse his dodgy looking hands and my laziness not to bother sahidng it.

Red Is...Iconic

To me, the colour red is iconic and stands out more than any other colour. I have decided to use characters from story’s/comics which I think Iconic but not everyone else may do.

I started to look at characters that I knew like Hellboy and Little Red Riding hood who are well known for their “red” colour. I then progressed and started to look at other characters like Deadpool who wears a very well known red costume and the not so known Scarlet Spiders.

From there I started to think of other characters that I knew somehow had the colour red incorporated into either their name/persona or their overall costumes. For example, Edward Elric, from the Japanese authored comic “Full Metal Alchemist”, has a very distinguished Red Trench coat.

I have looked at existing images that I either have or have found on the Internet. Certain characters like Little Red Riding hood can be interpretated in many different ways but other like Deadpool have a very fixed appearance. (It all depends on which artists have drawn him as opposed to an artist drawing him in his or her own unique and characterised way.)

So I was inking and colouring my ten pieces of work today and I knew straight away that not many people would get where I was coming from. Many people don't know the characters but I thought: What the hell. I've never done a project just for myself and on my ND course my teacher hated anything to do with my own interests.

So here are the characters I drew and why I choose them.
1. Wiccan: (Billy Kaplan) A marvel character who wears a red shawl in homage to his mother the Scarlet Witch. (see the connection yet?)

2. Edward Elric: From the Japanese comic "The Full Metal Alchemist." In his younger days he wears a very Iconic and flamboyant Red Trench Coat. He's also searching for the philosophers stone which is sometimes called the blood stone. (See! See! There is a connection.)

3. Hellion: (Jullian Keller) An X-men character who used to wear a red training suit and the word hell also makes me think of the colour red. Where he got his original name was from the Massachusetts Hellions (a rival Mutant group whose costumes where also red)

4. Little Red Riding Hood: What...You need an explanation? Well all right, it's such an Iconic story that can be interpreted in countless ways.

5. DeadPool: Wade Wilson. A very Iconic Red Suit and when every I think of the word "deadpool" I think of blood. (maybe it's just me. o.0)

6. Hellboy: HB's code name is Red. How much more detail do you want me to go into here?

7. The Scarlet Spiders (Team Red): After having a delightful disagreement with Ben lets clear one thing up. This is NOT spiderman. Nor is it THE scarlet Spider or SpiderMan in his armoured costume that Tony Stark made for him. It is one of the MVP clones. 'NUFF SAID. (This geek gets pissy with the little details.)

8. Icarus: (Jason "Jay" Guthrie) CannonBalls little brother with red wings and matching hair. A character wasted in New X-men when he was pointless killed off with a good handful of other characters.

9. Carnage: (will explain this the best I can) Cletus Kasady shared a cell with Eddie Brock (venom) on Rikers Island prison. Symbites reproduce asexually and the offspring got into a cut on Kasady's hand and there for Carnage was born. When he killed someone he was known the write "Carnage Rules" in their blood on the walls. Precocious little scamp, ain't he? ;D

10. Marvel Comics: The logo from the late 80's early 90's and then first one I initially grew up with. Marvel Have always had the iconic red colour. (Unless they're doing a character promotion. *shrugs* Who really knows how these comic peoples minds work.)

(mine and Pauls work.)

I added a green background to some of the images after Jo pointed out that it would make the red stand out more. I only got half of them done with the time we had left but the full complete green against the roughness of the felt tips made it stand out more.

On a minor note, and it's a point I do feel I have to bring up. It was brought to my attention that in the crit one of the pieces of work was taken down in a way that no piece of work should be treated. I found this terribly rude and disrespectful of said person taking down the work of another student who had worked really hard all week to produce a great body of work.

Simply Put: TREAT OTHERS WORK WITH RESPECT! (and they won't have a small bitch about you later...kay? =D)

A great Logo, If I do say so myself.

So I'm currently really into a great comic by Marcus Almand called: The Razor Kid. It's a about a young boy genius who lives in a world where the paranormal is recorded and measured in an almost police like way. Alex Tanaka learns the hard way about life when he witness something horrific and it results in his arms being ripped off by something you wouldn't like to see in a dark council estate alley. So armed with a set of cybernetic arms, Alex must tread carefully around the world of the supernatural as: The Razor Kid.

Look, it sounds and looks better than what I've put but I just wanted to show the logo designed by Kyle McHenry. (Freelance Artists, doesn't actually have a site. XD)

I love how the "razor" aspect has been incorporated and tech theme that runs with the protagonists personality. So in a way it relates to the personality font I was designing last week. I'm going to take a leaf out of McHenry's book as he nailed this logo so well.

(Art work by the lovely Javier Burgos Arroyo)

The bad thing about Razor Kid is that i favour the villains more than the "heroes". XD The "sons of nowhere" as they are called are a bunch of, putting it politely, fucked in the head teenagers. They where mutilated and warped by this insane lady doctor who makes my blood run call. You're getting something right Marcus!

And because Ian "FrostBite" is my favourite villain:

Oh Shi- Cuttle Theory!

We had colour theory on Monday and I was a spazz and left my camera 50 odd miles away I shall do a small piece on it now....with Adams Photo's. Thankyou in advance Adam! =D

I really dislike the colour red but I was highly surprised how many red things there where kicking around my house. I think I stuck Captain Mar-Vel in there for the heck of it, but he fit rather nicely in my pocket. Anyway, I digress. I loved the fact that where was such an odd assortment of red things including my favourite; the red splatty heart!

(You spin me right round baby right round. Pete Burns you sexy beast!)

(Coca-Cola have in no way endorsed this image. If you try to sue I'll have to give you my pocket fluff. =3 )

(Because I like the colour blue...)

Alphabet Soup: Adam's Font

So the two weeks for the fonts that we had to create for our partners. I have to admit that I am extremely disapointed in my own font that I made for Adam. Due to my poor time keeping skills, and this weeks a total head mess, I didn't quite get the affect I wanted. The layouts sheets I did for the letter forms looked a whole lot better than the ones I eventually showed at my crit.

The letters look so much better in colour and less "spooky" as to what some people thought of them. I actaully didn't see the creepy/Halloween feel to the letters until it was pointed out. I thought perhaps the "C" looked a little monsterfied, but nothing to the extreme of blood and slime. -.-

The personality traits that really stuck out for me from Adam was his quiet and artistic side which i tried to incorporate with his over appearance. He's a rather tall and bold looking guy, but not a mean or intimidating way. So using the guitar hero font (as Adam likes his guitars) I made them bold and some of them tall. The serifs where rounded off to give a softer feel and the counters where supposed to look like paint splatters.

However, having my crit and from the responses i received I've decided to try and go back to the original guitar hero font and perhaps dine the paint splats more so they look less like slime or dripping blood.

Adam's font he made was fantastic! I thought it really did incorporate quite a few traits of my personality. My clumsiness, my fidgeting and agitation and my almost split personality. But the bold characters behind the almost shaken ones represent that; don't worry I am all here...too an extent. =D

I also liked how the comic book aspect of my personality had also been so well incorporated into the font. All the alphabet together doens't show this very much but on the name badge he made for me, you can see it quite well.

(The only chance I will ever have an excuse to photograph my own chest)

I'm going to work more on Adam's font over this weekend and in my spare time until the hand in of the module. There is so much more I can do to it and now I have over peoples input I'm sure more ideas will come about.

The Print Rooms...Full Of Wallnutty Goodness

Oh what a day. I'm not one for lino printing or any of the printing crap to be fairly honest with you. It's a nice affect and you can bulk up your folder really well with various hack jobs and I think that's why I dislike it so much. (It's like sticking a random doodle in your folder becasue you thing it will help your folder's weight. It will do, but overall it will look shit.)

However, today has been a rather enjoyable and I think my preconceptions of Print Making where flawed becasue we where rather restricted in what we could do on my ND. (In York...hint hint, don't go there.)

So I our DP1 group became rather messy, the guy was fairly amusing and we all got to know each other a little better.

(Ooo what a mess. It's worse than Barnsley.)

I think after almost five hours the majority of us where sick of seeing mono print and where bored out of out minds. However, doing this introduction has opened up a lot of doors and techniques we can use later on in the year and the following years to come.

(Pretty colours =D)


(...Pollock? Is that you?)


(A rather Gimpy looking H)

So overall there was some great pieces of work being produces and I might dabble in this area for my work again but I'm overall not too sure. It isn't the mess that bothers mess. (If you think that, you've clearly not seen my house.) But I'm not sure, perhaps when we do screen pretending next week my opinions may change.

And Lastly. Somthing to make you all think twice about "cute babys", I present to you: My Baby Brother due in December.

Seriously. DX

Hmmm Alphabet Soup (contains E Numbers ;D)

We had a brief this week just gone, to develop 10 x A6 resolutions which communicate our interpretation of a word assigned to to us.I got compress -.-; and i would like to burn the randomize box for that because i suddenly hit an art block at the same time which was full of epic fail.We pretty much had free reign on what we could do so i picked the most conservative looking thing EVAR! According to my crit i had one idea and just ran with it. I'd like to make a point that i have a note book here full of so much more it hurts and you know it.

(HYSTERICAL)

(Our Charming Wall Of Shapes)

I felt so sorry for those who received shapes like hexagon and star, as I got circle and rectangle which to be honest with you...was piss easy. For this quick brief we had to make the alphabet out of these random shapes.

(Mine would be the shit ones in the middle)